Gators land some help up front in Delray Beach American Heritage OL Roderick Johnson

The Florida Gators secured the future of their running attack early on in the recruiting process, landing commitments from two of the state’s top 2013 running back backs: Belle Glade Glades Day’s Kelvin Taylor and Winter Haven’s Adam Lane.

Now the Gators are setting their sights on a few hogs to pave the way for Taylor and Lane.

Florida received its first class of 2013 offensive line commit Sunday when Delray Beach American Heritage left tackle Roderick Johnson pledged to the Gators after his weekend visit to the school.

“It kind of reminded me how my high school practices looked and I kind of fell in love with it,” Johnson said of his experience watching Florida practice Saturday. “So me and my high school coaches talked about it on the way home and I made my decision.”

Johnson (6-6, 300) said he envisions himself blocking for Taylor and Lane in the near future. He already blocks for another one of the best running backs in the state in teammate Greg Bryant.

“It’d be awesome blocking for Kelvin Taylor and the rest of the running backs coming in,” he said. “Me and Kelvin Taylor talked to each other today. He texted me and said ‘congratulations, welcome to the fam’, stuff like that. We were talking about maybe going to the spring game [together].”

The Gators view Johnson as a left tackle and plan to use the mammoth lineman early in his career to help beef up the team’s running attack.

“It seemed to me like they expected me to start my first year,” Johnson said. “They want me to play real early.”

He added: “It makes me feel good to know they run the ball. They kind of run the pro-style offense, which I need to develop because I know most NFL teams run that style prop-style offense too. So I can develop, get better every year at it and then hopefully going at it at the next level.”

Johnson is the 11th commitment of the Gators’ 2013 recruiting class. He also had offers from West Virginia, UCF, SMU, USF, Louisville and FIU. He is ranked as the No. 37 offensive tackle in the nation by Rivals.com.

He is “fired up” to be part of Florida’s strong group of commits, but Johnson said he plans on taking visits to West Virginia, Auburn and possibly Nebraska in the future.

“Right now, I’m kind of solid right now,” Johnson said. “As time comes, I’m planning on looking at some other stuff too.”